Stellaris 2.0 Cherryh and Apocalypse Feature Summary – Dev Diary #105

There’s not much here that we don’t already know. You can see all of my dev diary responses here, which offer summaries of the features so far. The new content in this week’s roundup was a set of notes for modders (very pertinent to Odin Gaming!) and 15 minutes of new music by the legendary Andreas Waldetoft. A taster of the three new tracks can be heard on YouTube.

Now is a good time to summarise all of the content coming in 2.0 Cherryh and Apocalypse! Below are two lists; one for Cherryh, and one for Apocalypse.

There’s a more detailed post-release examination of these features – including a first look at modding in 2.0 – in a later post here.

Stellaris 2.0 Cherryh Features

Borders are now a reflection of system ownership rather than a cause for it to change, with the owner almost always being determined by the owner of the Starbase in said system.

Each system can have only a single Starbase, which can vary in strength and entirely replace Frontier Outposts.

There is a Starbase Capacity, with the lowest level of Starbase (and Outpost) using no capacity, but otherwise each Starbase will use 1 Starbase Capacity.

Starbases replace Spaceports and so will be responsible for military ship construction and system/planet defence.

Starbases can support Modules and Buildings which can specialise the role of the Starbase.

Starbases will generally be much more formidable than their current Spaceport counterparts.

Starbases must be destroyed before system planets can be invaded.

Warp and wormholes are being ditched in favour of hyperlanes only.

Galactic Terrain will influence movement about the galaxy in a significant way and will apply modifiers to local entities.

Empires can spend influence to place a Claim on a system they don’t own, which can be later pressed in war.

Empires now need a good reason – a Casus Belli – to go to war, dependent on empire ethics.

Warscore is being replaced with War Exhaustion, more or less its inverse, where the empire on the losing side of a war will suffer higher war exhaustion and eventually surrender.

Introduction of System Occupation, in which an aggressor gains temporary control of occupied systems and their economy.

Star charts are being removed in favour of a Communications system, whereby empires may trade comms with each other to interact with other empires.

Terra Incognita is now dependent entirely on whether a system has been visited, or you have comms with an empire that encompasses that system.

Addition of a Force Disparity Combat Bonus which is applied to the smaller fleet in an engagement.

Introduction of Ship Disengagement, which means that ships get a chance to disengage from battle if they’ve sustained heavy damage.

Addition of a Command Limit to limit the maximum size of individual fleets.

Inherent ship class Power Levels, changes to Armor, introduction of components rewarding ship specialisation, changes to missiles to make them similar to torpedoes, and changes to Combat Computers so they reflect engagement tactics.

Ability to pick War Doctrines, a new policy that influences the overall strategic military doctrine for fleets, when finishing the Supremacy traditions.

Addition of another standard technological tier in the tech tree (up to five from four).

Possibility of gaining tier six technologies by scavenging the wrecks of Fallen Empire ships.

Components from tech increases give more significant stat boosts.

Tech and Unity costs are entirely dependent on the number of owned planets and systems and not pops.

Armies are automatically generated by certain buildings, including the new Fortress, which spawns armies impervious to orbital bombardment.

Fortified worlds can be fitted with an FTL inhibitor, preventing enemy fleets from leaving the system unless that planet is captured.

Planet size determines Combat Width, which determines how many army units can be engaged in combat at once.

Ground combat results in Collatoral Damage to buildings and pops.

The fortification bonus is out and fleets instead deal Planetary Damage, ruining buildings and killing pops.

Pirates are being reworked and will now spawn in empty systems bordering empires.

A number of Planetary Edicts have been moved to Empire Edicts.

Empire Edicts have a flat influence cost and duration instead of a monthly cost.

A new type of Empire Edict called Campaigns have a flat energy cost.

Interstellar Dominion, Mastery of Nature, and World Shaper Ascension Perks have been adjusted.

New Eternal Vigilance and Executive Vigor Ascension Perks.

Quality of life UI changes to let you easily see if buildings need upgrading, pops need assignments, or ships need upgrading.

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